How many of you feel that when the 18th Dynasty mummies are eventually DNA tested that they will be shown to have been misidentified? How do you feel the mummies should be refigured? Do you feel that after DNA testing we will simply be creating more questions than we have now? Do you have any theories that DNA testing might be able to either validate or dismiss?
Posted by neo*geo (Member # 3466) on :
I don't believe historians should rely so much on DNA tests because they can add more questions than answers to existing questions. However, DNA testing for the 18th dynasty might provide solid answers to a few questions like:
- Is the "elder lady" Queen Tiye or Nefertiti..
- Nefertiti's lineage
- Who Tut's parents were
- If the 18th dynasty is directly related to the 17th and 12th dynasties...
Posted by Keino on :
quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: How many of you feel that when the 18th Dynasty mummies are eventually DNA tested that they will be shown to have been misidentified? How do you feel the mummies should be refigured? Do you feel that after DNA testing we will simply be creating more questions than we have now? Do you have any theories that DNA testing might be able to either validate or dismiss?
Horemheb, I think DNA testing will allow more definite answer to family lineage (especially surrounding king tut) which will help in either solidifying or dismissing tentative theories. However, the intrepretation of those results have to be used obectively and soundly analyzed to "let the chips fly where they may" so to speak, and not to hold onto views that we want to see held as true or false. Are they allowing DNA testing? I am very surprise if they are.
Posted by Artemi (Member # 3176) on :
What I've been hearing and reading is that they are not yet doing much DNA testing on the royal mummies because currently results of testing done on ancient tissues are still incomplete, inconclusive and easily contaminated. They (SCA?) are waiting until expected improvements in the process are done before they start taking sample from the Egyptian royals. I heard this in a lecture by Mark Lehner a few months ago, and read a similar statement in Dr. Hawass's most recent book "HIDDEN TREASURES OF ANCIENT EGYPT".
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Most tissue that is tested on ancient mummies comes from the teeth or from very deep tissue which is untouched by the embalming process. To truly extract Dna the tester would have to take bone and grind it up for such Dna. The mummification process the Egyptians did really complicates the extraction of Dna,so Hawass is probally right that more technology must come along for accuracy.
Did you know that many mummies are in Utah. Brigham Young Unversity is one of the centers in the United States that specializes in Genetics,and this university has many mummies which they claim to even be the mummy of Joseph. Some even said that Tut-ankh-Amun had traces of a Hebrew lineage. Hawass was all up in arms about this finding,so this might be some of the reason he has forbidden Dna extraction.
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Most tissue that is tested on ancient mummies comes from the teeth or from very deep tissue which is untouched by the embalming process. To truly extract Dna the tester would have to take bone and grind it up for such Dna. The mummification process the Egyptians did really complicates the extraction of Dna,so Hawass is probally right that more technology must come along for accuracy.
Did you know that many mummies are in Utah. Brigham Young Unversity is one of the centers in the United States that specializes in Genetics,and this university has many mummies which they claim to even be the mummy of Joseph. Some even said that Tut-ankh-Amun had traces of a Hebrew lineage. Hawass was all up in arms about this finding,so this might be some of the reason he has forbidden Dna extraction.
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Most tissue that is tested on ancient mummies comes from the teeth or from very deep tissue which is untouched by the embalming process. To truly extract Dna the tester would have to take bone and grind it up for such Dna. The mummification process the Egyptians did really complicates the extraction of Dna,so Hawass is probally right that more technology must come along for accuracy.
Did you know that many mummies are in Utah. Brigham Young Unversity is one of the centers in the United States that specializes in Genetics,and this university has many mummies which they claim to even be the mummy of Joseph. Some even said that Tut-ankh-Amun had traces of a Hebrew lineage. Hawass was all up in arms about this finding,so this might be some of the reason he has forbidden Dna extraction.
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Posted by Horemheb (Member # 3361) on :
I'll tell you one thing, if King Tut or anyone in the royal family turned out to have hebrew genes it would blow the roof off Egyptian history and mideast politics. i thought when DNA testing became a possibility it might rewrite much ancient history, not just in AE but all over. I can see why Hawass would run from it as fast as he can though I would like to have the information.
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Politics and scholarship is not supposed to mix. This is one of the reason I don't take Hawass very serious. He is very narrow minded individual when it comes to Egyptian history. Even when his colleuges disagree with him like Gaballah Ali Gaballah.
Posted by Amun (Member # 1813) on :
quote:Originally posted by ausar: Politics and scholarship is not supposed to mix. This is one of the reason I don't take Hawass very serious. He is very narrow minded individual when it comes to Egyptian history. Even when his colleuges disagree with him like Gaballah Ali Gaballah.
Politics and scholarship always mix when it comes to DNA testing. This is one thing I agree with Hawass on. You need look no further than the poltically motivated DNA research on Jews and Arabs being conducted in Israel or the DNA studies being conducted by Macedonia to distance themselves from the Greeks.
As far as horemheb's comment goes, I believe the hebrews originate from Egypt not modern day Iraq as the bible says. My theory is that they were an ethnic potpourri made up of different peoples who worked in Egypt as slaves(Canaanites, Syrians, Nubians, Indo-Europeans) and followers of Akhenaten's Aten cult.
Posted by Horemheb (Member # 3361) on :
When I read the writing on Ankanaten's tomb that was almost Psalms 104 word for word I knew something was up. You get the feeling that there is really important information (perhaps vital imformation) from the Armana period we don't have yet. You have to think that when DNA is perfected it is going to rewrite much of our view on ancient history.
Posted by sokar (Member # 4358) on :
My fear is that DNA testing will not be of much value. The show I saw waas ussing that mitio DNA that is only in the female line and claiming that the fetus were King Tut's offspring thererfore they must be ANkhesenpaamun's. Not true. The fetuses could easily be his by a concubine or secondary wife. AT 19, he was certainly old enough to have both. Also, DNA testing gives us information which the AE lacked. A child could be "proven" NOT to be the son of a King but all the AE thought he was.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Horemheb: [B]How many of you feel that when the 18th Dynasty mummies are eventually DNA tested that they will be shown to have been misidentified?